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Outlining Main Ideas and Details Adapted from: Expository Writing by Tara McCarthy
Students examine articles from a number of sources to determine their main ideas and details, and discuss them as a class. Using a worksheet, they practice outlining a report after watching a teacher demonstration of the outlining...
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Old Style in High Style
Students explore how fashion has mirrored the attitudes and lifestyles of people in different cultures throughout history and create fashion magazines reflecting their findings.
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Summing It Up Can Be Fun!!
Students observe and demonstrate the process of summarizing text. As a class, they silently read an article about panda bears from "Ranger Rick" magazine and answer comprehension questions. They answer the five "W" questions, and write...
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Short and Sweet Science
Readers learn how to summarize scientific text and evaluate the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in writing summaries. They select science-related articles you've pulled and collected from the New York Times and, with a partner,...
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Get the Skinny! Summarize a Story!
Students examine the steps of summarizing text. They silently read an article, then read and discuss the steps to summarizing a passage. Students then write a summary of the article they read, and as a class discuss the main idea,...
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You've Got to be Taught to Hate and Fear
Students explore themes of prejudice and acceptance. For this character education lesson, students listen and respond to several fiction books, poems, and lyrics with a similar theme. Students locate articles with the main idea of...
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What are the Issues?
Seventh graders complete political analysis activities. For this political analysis lesson, 7th graders discuss party platforms and research party issues for their party's candidate's positions. Students complete an issues organizer and...
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Guided Reading Organizer for Chain Reaction
The class uses Chain Reaction, a magazine, to build a better understanding of Latin and Greek roots found in scientific vocabulary. They use two attached worksheets to help them read a scientific article, using visual clues and their...
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Super Summarizer!!!
Emerging readers summarize a nonfiction text using a five step process. After a brief demonstration of the five-step method for summarizing text, they read a nonfiction article and write their own summary. A checklist of each summary is...
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Author's Purpose
A simple activity for young readers, this introduces the idea of author purpose. Learners analyze various types of texts (newspaper articles, magazines, books, advertisements, etc.) and determine if the author's purpose for writing was...
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Reading Logs - Practice Creates Efficiency
Students examine how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a reading selection. They keep a reading log of what they read each day, reviewing their reading selections with the class.
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Beyond "Ranger Rick"
Students explore the information which can be obtained from periodicals. Groups of students formulate questions to research and determine the main idea to use to obtain the data for their specific topics.
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Ten Cents a Word
Learners recognize the importance of summarizing in this lesson. They "sum up" an article about monarch butterflies. Students practice writing summaries of the article charging themselves 10 cents/word. They try to write the least...
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Can you Summarize?
Students write summaries of non-fiction articles in this lesson. They read the article silently and then pick out the main points. Students list the main events as a whole class activity, and then they individually write a summary of...
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"Beary" Super Summarizing!
Students practice the the strategy steps of summarization to assist them in remembering what they've read. They read and analyze a copy of the article "Hey, Bear' Beware" from Ranger Rick Magazine for content and important details.
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Simply Summarize
Students review the concept of silent reading. Through modeling and guided practice, they follow five given steps in summarizing a written passage. Then they read a passage independently and follow the same steps in summarizing the...
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Enduring Legacies of the New Deal
Students investigate U.S. history by listening to an economics lecture. In this U.S. government activity, students research the "New Deal" which happened after the Great Depression. Students identify movies, books and music from the...
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Outlining
Students read and evaluate a piece of expository writing. They participate in a class discussion of the outlining process and individually outline a piece of expository writing. Finally, the students create an outline for the purpose...
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Summarization Made Easy
Learners explore the concept of summarization. They discuss the importance of summarization and the steps to summarize a text. Students read a text and highlight the important or main ideas within the text. They discuss the information...
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Secret 'Lives'
Learners read an online article in preparation for researching a period in history and interviewing someone who lived during that time. They investigate how they have participated in history.
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Jingles Sell
Students explore the different persuasive techniques used in commercial and print advertisements. Students then analyze a variety of print ads and discuss the effects of a country's political, economic, and social climates on its...
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It's Time to Sum It Up!!!
Pupils practice the reading strategy of summarization skills by picking out main events or ideas while reading a chapter in a book. They interact with the article, "SuperCroc," from National Geographic for Kids magazine to summarize and...
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Sum + It = Up
Learners review silent reading techniques as well as summarization. They read copies of "Forest Life" silently and complete a story web to organize the main points of the story. They then use use the points to write a brief paragraph to...
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What's Important To You?
Second graders discuss as a class the importance of silent reading and describe some examples when it would be inappropriate if everyone read out loud. They read silently along as an article called, "Fighting a Mystery Illness" is read...